Adolfo Pérez Esquivel (born November 26, 1931) is an Argentine human rights activist, community organizer, pacifist, art painter, writer and sculptor. He was the recipient of the 1980 Nobel Peace Prize.

Pérez Esquivel served as president of the Honorary Council of Service, Latin American Peace and Justice Foundation and of the International League for Human Rights and Liberation of Peoples (based in Milan), and as a member of the Permanent Peoples' Tribunal. He published Caminando Junto al Pueblo ("Walking Together with the People", 1995), in which he relates his experiences with non-violence in Latin America, and was appointed Professor of Peace and Human Rights Studies at the University of Buenos Aires in 1998.[7] He campaigned during 2010 against the practice on the part of the Esquel Police Department of training children into paramilitary squads, an operation he compares to the creation of Nazi Germany's Hitler Youth.[8]

He disapproved of the European intervention in the Libyan Civil War and warned against an intervention in the Syrian civil war.[9] In the aftermath of the Death of Osama bin Laden, he sent a letter to President Barack Obama suggesting the United States killed rather than tried bin Laden because he could have revealed unsettling information about 9/11.[9] He argued, "You know that there are people who have investigated the tragic events of 9/11/2001 and claim there is evidence that this was a self-coup (self-inflicted attack)."[9] Later, he added, "this event was the perfect excuse to launch a war against Afghanistan and Iraq and now against Libya," and referred to the United States an "axis of evil."[9]

Pérez Esquivel expressed himself regarding the historic, March 13, 2013, election of Archbishop of Buenos Aires Jorge Bergoglio as Pope Francis, stating that as Provincial superior of Jesuits "he had lacked the sufficient courage shown by other Bishops to support our cause for human rights during the dictatorship."[10] Pérez Esquivel also said that "Bergoglio did what he could given his age at that time"[11] He, however, clarified that the future Pope "was no accomplice and had no links with the dictatorship," and that while "it is said he did not do enough to get two priests out of jail, I know personally that many bishops called on the military junta for the release of prisoners and priests and that these requests were not granted."[12]

^On November 17, 1980, his wife, Amanda, wrote a letter to Hildegard Goss-Mayr, IFOR travelling secretary: "This [Nobel] prize will have to be woven with all those who have been for years in this difficult task of uniting and reconciling brothers. Although I never told you this, through your letters and personal contacts you have stimulated in one way or another the path that Adolfo has walked. He has always had you as his first teacher, who one distant day arrived in Buenos Aires, connected with the Ark, and explained in the most simple and humble way what nonviolence was...[with] your suggesting...the way to work and organize. You have always accompanied us in the good and bad moments. For that reason too, I believe you are also part of this prize". Letter from Amanda Esquivel, in Richard Deats, 'Marked for Life: The Story of Hildegard Goss-Mayr', New City Press, Hyde Park, New York, 2009, p. 58-59.